Smart contracts are seen as one of the most powerful uses in blockchain technology. But despite a powerful name, in general, the concept of smart contracts is often poorly understood. Are smart contracts just code or are they the future of all legally binding agreements. And how smart are these smart contracts anyway.
This speech will address these topics which were part of a 1.5 years reconnaissance by the Smart Contract Workgroup of the Dutch Blockchain Coalition and later combined with other legal studies for the United Nations (UNOPS).


Target Audience: Developers, Architects, Project Leaders, Managers, Decision Makers
Prerequisites: Basic blockchain knowledge
Level: Practicing

Extended Abstract
Can we even talk about the smart contract or do we have to make nuances and last but not least, what are the most interesting developments on the technological side and on the legal side surrounding blockchain and smart contracts.
Blockchain is often one on one affiliated with cryptocurrencies and tokens while the potential uses of blockchain goes much further. Tokens in most cases could not exist if it wasn’t for smart contracts. Fortunately, the potential of smart contracts is being highlighted more and more. But the name smart contracts can be very misleading. Finding its origin in the software engineering world, it was later adopted by many from a legal background, leading to many misconceptions around the term smart contracts. Are they just code or are they legally binding agreements. Are they even smart and can we speak about the smart contracts. Where the technological community emphasized on smart contracts just being code, the legal world saw this as the potential replacement of all legally binding agreements. An extensive reconnaissance of the Smart Contract Workgroup of the Dutch Blockchain Coalition shows that the truth can be somewhere in the middle. With regards to smart, one must really understand how a smart contract works in order to understand how smart a smart contract potentially can be and finally, characteristics can vary very much per blockchain. The legal side of blockchain in general is something that is still pretty much open for investigation. The Dutch Blockchain Coalition together with several other initiatives from around the world did a broader reconnaissance to the legal side of blockchain in general that will be published under the UN flag (UNOPS). The answer to the both technical and questions about smart contracts and developments surrounding smart contracts will be addressed in this speech.